


Monster

by mssrj_335



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Archangel Gabriel (Supernatural), Demon Blood Addiction, Dom/sub Undertones, Gabriel is a Powerful Bastard, God everything I write is pretentious, Grace Sharing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Self-Loathing, Wings, and we usually forget that, im sorry, it's pretty heavy guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 20:01:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4848590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mssrj_335/pseuds/mssrj_335
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam, addicted to demon blood, has parted ways with Dean and Cas.  He's still trying to save the world from the apocalypse, or thought he was until he's about to get massacred by demons and is forced to face some ugly truths when Gabriel pulls him from the ledge.  The archangel offers him a way to cure his addiction, but Sam can hardly accept it, even when he is falling apart.  He's just a monster.  Isn't he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monster

Sam frantically looked around at the circle of demons surrounding him. Four, five, six…

 

Six demons, practically licking their chops to get a bite out of him. _Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck_. This was the end. There was no getting out of this, not without some kind of goddamn miracle. Dean wasn’t here and Cas couldn’t find him anymore. He was on his own. And he only had enough juice left to kill one or two; it’d been too long since he’d had any demon blood for any more than that. _Fuck it then._

 

 

“Come on!” he shouted, brandishing his gun and baring his teeth.

 

The demons leapt, all at once. There was no one-at-a-time bullshit like in the movies. They dug their stolen vessels’ fingers into his skin, trying to pull him apart molecule by molecule. The world was going black and Sam was screaming to the last.

 

Then, there was a bright, bright light and the demons shrieked.  First in fear, then in agony. Within seconds, they tried to smoke out of their bodies. Sam flopped onto the floor and managed to focus enough to dissolve one smoking demon into a flashing, burning cloud like he had Alistair. He could feel the demon twisting and the blood gushing out his own nose even though he couldn’t see for the light. Whatever was killing these demons was probably going after him next, and Sam wasn’t giving up without a fight.  He reached out with his senses, feeling for the entity that was taking the building out from under him.  Nothing.  He couldn't find a thing and Sam’s ears were ringing with the demons' unholy sounds. The glass in the warehouse windows burst and Sam curled in on himself. The noise was too much.

 

Too much, then it was gone. Sam looked out from under his elbows and gasped. A familiar diminutive figure was standing amidst the bodies and the wreckage, staring at him with glowing golden eyes and flared wings made of bronze light.

 

“Gabriel?” Sam whispered.

 

The archangel didn’t say anything. He only snapped his fingers. Sam ducked again and waited for his body to explode. But it didn’t. The only thing that changed was the weather.

 

Well, sort of, until he looked up. Where he’d been hunting was cold and wet. Wherever he was now was warm and dry. He rolled onto his back and looked around, bleeding onto the floor where the demons had torn into him. There wasn’t anything familiar except for Gabriel who stood, shoulders hunched, on a balcony. Sam pulled himself from the cool marble and warily approached. Gabriel’s wings were tucked back away in the fourth dimension or wherever he kept them. Now, he looked angry, the set of his shoulders stiff and his back straight. He turned his head slightly at Sam’s approach and crossed his arms instead of saying anything.

 

“Gabriel?” Sam said quietly. “What are we doing here?”

 

“I’m saving your ass again, Winchester,” Gabriel said shortly, staring out over the forest below instead of looking at Sam.

 

Sam’s heart clenched uncomfortably at the pointed use of his last name. “You didn’t answer me,” he replied in a tight voice.

 

“We’re here because I made it for you! It’s the only place I can take you that’s safe!” Gabriel raged.

 

Sam’s brows furrowed and he straightened. “I can take care of myself, Gabriel.”

 

Gabriel’s eyes widened in fury. “Like hell you can, Sam. With your brother out of the picture, you’re just trying to kill yourself. You’re working yourself into the ground, you’re getting sloppy. C’mon Sammy, even newbie would’ve known that place was bad news.”

 

Sam flinched, in no little part because Gabriel hit a little too close to home. “You don’t know anything,” he denied. “You don’t know what’s happening to me!”

 

Gabriel had had enough. He fisted his hands in Sam’s flannel and pinned him to the wall. “I do know,” he whispered fiercely. “I’m sure every angel within a hundred miles can tell what’s wrong with you. You’re miserable. I can _hear_ the misery spilling outta that gigantic brain of yours.”

 

Sam fought against Gabriel’s hands. “Let me go, Gabriel!”

 

“You’re _miserable_ ,” Gabriel repeated, punctuating his point by flattening his hands against Sam’s chest and shoving hard as he let Sam slide down, “because you’re an addict. You can’t get your fix and it hurts so bad, you want to die. My question is, when did you stop fighting? When did Sam Winchester, the most stubborn jackass I’ve ever met in my existence, _give up_?”

 

Sam wanted to deny it, to say something to prove him wrong. He wanted to rail against Gabriel’s words and his wrath, but he just _couldn’t_. Because the angel was right. The demon blood was simmering in his veins, demanding to be fed again and again and again. It’s why Dean had left in the first place, and when Dean left, he’d had nothing to keep him from going back. Sam slumped to the floor, clenching his fists until his knuckles turned white. He could smell the blood in Gabriel and it’s sweet, powerful scent. It was different from demon blood, but promised to be just as good. He groaned and buried his head in his knees, expecting Gabriel to leave him there in his wretchedness. Instead, he felt Gabriel settle to his knees in front of him and take his hands.

 

“Sam,” he murmured, voice infinitely more merciful than it had been, fingers tracing absent patterns on Sam’s knuckles, “I don’t want you to hurt anymore. I’m crazy for you, kiddo.”

 

Sam wrenched his gaze from his knees and stared.

 

“Sam,” Gabriel said in a rush. “I love you, you crazy, hopeless human. And I want to fix this.”

 

“How—how can you possibly help me?”

 

Gabriel chuckled softly. “ _Hello_ , archangel,” he said gently, gripping Sam’s hands tight. “All I need is for you to say yes.”

 

Sam bit his lip and fought back tears as the burn started in earnest under his skin. “Gabriel,” he choked, “I’m a monster. I’ve tried so hard to change, to fit the mold, but nothing has _ever_ worked. Everything I touch goes bad. And nothing I hold is dark enough, so it must be me. It’s just me, and everything I’ve ever done. I’m a monster and there’s no fixing me.”

 

Sam was babbling, lost in loathing and the aching, fiery sensation his bones until Gabriel shifted and wrapped his arms around Sam’s broad shoulders. Despite himself, despite everything, Sam buried his face in Gabriel’s neck and sobbed, soaking up the angel’s unnatural warmth and twisting his fingers into the angel’s shirt. Gabriel froze when Sam’s tears touched his skin and burned, but he held Sam tighter a moment later. He soothed him with soft sounds and ran his fingers in Sam’s hair.

 

“Sam, Sam Sam Sam,” Gabriel said in a hushed voice, “you should see what I see. You’re so bright. Even with this mess, you’re beautiful.”

 

“Everyone I’ve ever known turned their back on me,” Sam said in a strangled voice. “I’m dangerous. They’re _scared of me_. Gabriel, it hurts. Everything hurts.”

 

Gabriel pressed his lips to Sam’s brow. “I’m here, Sam,” he murmured against his skin.

 

“What about learning the lesson?” Sam stumbled, limbs shaking. “Playing the part?”

 

Gabriel pulled back and looked at Sam with guilt-stricken eyes. “That was the plan,” he said quietly. “I love my family, Sam, and I just want it to be over. But not at this cost.” He cradled Sam’s face gently in one hand and pressed the other to Sam’s knee. “There’s only one other soul brighter than yours, Sam, and frankly he’s kinda got an easy in for it. I—I can’t stand to see this anymore. You’re just a man, led by a candle in a stormy night. Your soul is fractured in so many places I’m not sure how you’re still going. Let me help you; you don’t have to do it alone anymore.”

 

The burn in his bones was becoming unbearable, but Sam vehemently shook his head. “I—”

 

“Please,” Gabriel whispered.

 

Sam’s walls collapsed at Gabriel’s heart-wrenching plea. The last time he’d tried to stop, he’d been locked in Bobby’s safe room with nothing and no one, strapped to a flimsy mattress. He’d burned for days. Sam gripped Gabriel’s forearms as hard as he could, as if he could stave off the seizures by pure force of will.  When he couldn't speak, he prayed desperately to the archangel that he wouldn’t let him burn. Then he nodded and slumped back against the wall, feeling the full-body spasms grow. Gabriel swiftly pulled him to his feet and spirited the two of them into a bedroom. His bedroom, if Sam had to guess. There were windows opening to the forest on all sides except the wall across from the bed. It was covered in a tumbling fall of water over black slate, hypnotic and soothing. Gabriel laid him down on the huge bed in a nest of soft, white, cotton and Sam curled into a ball, trying to hold in the shakes and the pain.

 

“Sam, I promise I won’t let it hurt. I promise,” Gabriel said, running his fingers through Sam’s hair again. “But I need you to look at me and stay still.”

 

Gabriel gently took hold of Sam’s ankle when he looked up and straightened one leg, then the other. Every movement was sprinkled with comforting touches and reassuring words until Sam was spread out flat on his back. His muscles were straining to stay still and his teeth were clenched so hard he thought they might break, but he tried his hardest not to move for Gabriel. The archangel settled gently above him, knees spread on either side of his hips. But instead of being the terrifying, suffocating weight Sam’d thought he’d be, Gabriel felt ridiculously, deliriously good.

 

“Are you ready?” Gabriel asked, voice hushed. When he nodded, Gabriel took hold of Sam’s hands again and pressed them to his chest. “Look at me, Sam. Listen to the water.”

 

Sam held Gabriel’s honeyed gaze even as it grew brighter and tuned out everything but the water and the color of Gabriel’s eyes. Soft bronze tendrils of light rose from behind Gabriel’s shoulders and twined down his chest to wrap around Sam’s wrists. Sam watched incoherently as the soft light sunk into his skin and lit up his veins. He gasped when he felt the warmth and moaned when the pain started to subside. It felt so good, so much better than—

 

“Sam,” Gabriel called when his eyes started to drift shut. “Just a little longer.”

 

Sam refocused on Gabriel, more bronze light creeping from him into Sam. Sam whimpered when the archangel fixed his hands over his heart where the glow was brightest. He felt his muscles start to relax. Gabriel’s wings unfurled, nothing more than shapes of light over his shoulders, but Sam stared at him in awe. Grace, he realized. Gabriel was giving him pieces of his Grace, sewing himself through Sam’s tattered pieces and making him whole again. Sam gasped at the realization and his back arched when the unnamable pleasure of Gabriel’s Grace radiated through him. Gabriel held him there for an incalculable amount of time, letting Sam feel his steady heartbeat as his Grace cradled Sam’s soul and burned through the demon blood.

 

“Sam.” Gabriel’s voice was different now. It was multitudinous, quiet and loud at the same time, and it echoed through his mind. “It’s alright.”

 

The warm pleasure was building and Sam slipped down the bed, rucking up his shirt and digging his heels into the sheets when Gabriel bent closer. He stroked his hand up the exposed skin of Sam’s stomach to his chest then covered Sam’s eyes.

 

“It’s alright, kiddo,” Gabriel murmured once more. “Let go.”

 

Sam felt like he was on fire, but it was a good kind of fire. He burned white hot and at Gabriel’s command, he gasped and let the Grace run all the way through him. He panted and arched his back as the room grew infinitely brighter behind Gabriel’s fingers. Then it all stopped at a glorious peak of sensation, and he couldn’t do it anymore. He screamed, and he knew no more.

 

* * *

 

When Sam woke, it was to the pleasant feeling of warm skin on his and the gurgle of running water. He shifted, then paused when he felt an arm slung under his. He tried to recall what had happened at where he was, letting it all come back in pieces. Gabriel must have whisked away most of their clothes before curling into him. Then he realized he wasn’t burning. The demon blood was gone and nothing hurt. He had no power anymore, but he felt like a human being and nothing hurt. Just like Gabriel had promised.

 

“Morning, Sammich.”

 

Speak of the devil. Sam twisted until he could face Gabriel, who was half buried under the soft covers, but he couldn’t make any words. He could only stare at the creature across from him. Gabriel tensed and he pulled away when Sam didn’t say anything. Sam scrambled into action and caught his hand quickly.

 

“Don’t go,” he pleaded, voice gravelly with sleep and eyes earnest.

 

When Gabriel smiled wide, Sam pulled him flush against him. Gabriel relaxed and shuffled closer but huffed once he was comfortable.

 

“We’re going to have to talk about this and what’s going to happen next,” Gabriel said quietly.

 

Sam hummed but couldn’t fight the happy flighty feeling in his chest. “I know,” he murmured, wrapping his arms tighter around the archangel and stroking a hand down his back. “But it can wait for a while.”

 

Gabriel smiled softly and pressed his lips to Sam’s. Yeah, it could definitely wait.

**Author's Note:**

> This little thing was another song-inspired piece, this time by Imagine Dragons and their song Monster. It's just screams Sam at me and I feel bad that I even wrote this thing. Poor bby. As always, everything is self-edited, so if I missed something, please please please let me know!


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